Authorities say Berkeley stabbing was hate crime

Update, Feb. 6, 5:40 p.m. Police said Wednesday that the victim and his partner were walking in the 2100 block of Haste when Hogue approached them and asked the victim about his sexual orientation. According to police, Hogue then stabbed the victim. It doesn’t appear that they knew each other; police described it as “a random attack.” No information was available as to the victim’s medical condition.

Update, 7:30 p.m. Police said this incident was classified as a hate crime because there was a comment or question prior to the attack that was related to sexual orientation.

Hogue, 33, of Oakland was arrested after a report that a man had been stabbed while walking with a friend on Haste Street near Shattuck Avenue at about 4:40 p.m. Friday.

Hogue was arrested on suspicion of attempted homicide and assault with a deadly weapon. He was also arrested on suspicion of committing a hate crime, according to the Alameda County sheriff’s department. A hate crime designation carries an additional penalty of one, two or three years in state prison, at the court’s discretion.

(Berkeleyside has requested additional information from police about why this crime was classified as a hate crime.)

According to police, the man who was stabbed was taken to the hospital for medical care, but his injuries did not appear to be life-threatening. As of Monday, police spokeswoman Officer Jennifer Coats said she did not have an update on his condition.

Police said the 21-year-old victim and assailant appeared to have been strangers with no prior conflicts.

According to a commenter on Berkeleyside, identified only as “Building Resident,” the stabbing took place outside the apartment building in the 2100 block of Haste across from the Berkeley Dog & Cat Hospital.

The victim had been unlocking the front gate after returning home when he was stabbed in the abdomen, wrote the commenter, adding that the assailant had been “casually waiting” by the door and had not been provoked.

“All of us are pretty shaken up by this incident since everyone in the building uses the front door,” the commenter continued. “Any one of us could’ve been the stabbing victim. Most of residents living here are just Cal students.”

Berkeleyside has requested confirmation from police about these details.

According to the sheriff’s department, Hogue remains in custody at the Berkeley Jail with a bail of $40,000. He was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday, Feb. 5, at 2 p.m. at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in downtown Oakland in Department 112.

Since the police won’t release any meaningful information, here’s what you can find on Ayo Hogues Facebook profile (https://www.facebook.com/ayo.hogue) under “about”: “Problems: severed baby foreskin, no twin, bad parents, 13yrs old; suicide attempt 19 yrs ago, siblings that practice sibling rivalry Siblings that are ingrates preacher gone have to lie on they grave to make them look good Going through thug therapy-ftw”

That does not seem like the rant of a mentally stable person.

bgal4

Two comments.
I wonder if this is the first AA charged by BPD with a hate crime enhancement.
BPD is not likely to share what racially biased statements Hogue made during the attack.

4Eenie

I didn’t realize that it was a racial slur. Couldn’t it have been another kind of hate crime?

94710Clear

Good catch Mfox327. His only post on his page is this: “I’m allergic to homosexuals” on January 21st. There’s the hate speech.

bgal4

such as a homophobic slur? sure, I was making an educated guess that the bias was racial.

The Sharkey

I would imagine that they were anti-gay statements.

I doubt BPD would ever classify any attack on a heterosexual white person as a “hate crime” – if that’s the case here, this may end up being National news.

bgal4

agreed, regardless of how often they occur.

4Eenie

Yes.

bgal4

why release the mug shot in this case?

The Sharkey

That doesn’t strike me as strong enough to be “hate speech” so I imagine what BPD is referring to is something he said during the attack.

The Sharkey

You got it. “Hate speech” classification has more to do with the minority status of the victim than the intent of the assailant.

emraguso

We’ve been asking regularly — they released it in this case. I’m not sure what the rationale was.

bingo

is it not legally possible for a hate crime to be committed against a white person? sorry if I misunderstand your response. I thought it was any ethnicity/gender/nationality/etc. motivated crime, but I don’t know CA law at all.

bgal4

Our cynical dialog is about how in Berkeley racial justice is exclusive to the aggrieved minority class. my kids were beat and stomped while being called white n…..The responding cops recognized a bias motivated hate crime, but the racial aspect was ignored during the investigation.

The Sharkey

This isn’t exclusive to Berkeley. This is a Nation-wide thing.

Mark L.

Kind of blows me away that stabbing someone in the gut is considered aggravated assault instead of attempted murder. And only $40,000 bail.

PragmaticProgressive

Also he works at “weed inc”

bgal4

Down coded.

emraguso

Just added this as an update to the story: Police said this incident was classified as a hate crime because there was a comment or question prior to the attack that was related to sexual orientation.

Jojo

In the middle of the afternoon? I live on Milvia and Haste and this is scary to hear… I get out of school at 4pm and take that walk home…

EarlyMorningCoffee

According to his FB page, Ayo has an allergy to homosexuals.

resident

Yup, and a block from one of the Cal preschools. I walk by that apt. building with my baby every day to pick up my older child.

bgal4

This guy is a repeat offender. The city has long delayed maintaining an adequate record system specific to problematic mentally ill offenders and individuals mandated to community corrections, parole and probation.

In the chief’s report he lists various tactics including the monitoring of chronic offenders, yet without a case management data system designed for the task the who, what and how of these criminal offenses is not properly collected for proactive supervision purposes.

guest

I’m not sure it’s a city responsibility or rather a county responsibility. Ditto for the case management system.

emraguso

Please note, we’ve added this update: “Police said Wednesday that the victim and his partner were walking in the 2100 block of Haste when Hogue approached them and asked the victim about his sexual orientation. According to police, Hogue then stabbed the victim. It doesn’t appear that they knew each other; police described it as “a random attack.” No information was available as to the victim’s medical condition.”